Some non-horror
and, it’s from me: “State,” over at the new Quarterly West.
Shining
Thinking a lot about haunted houses this semester — overseeing an ind study on them, just wrote a long old haunted house short story, and here we are coming on to Halloween — and, specifically, of course, about the idea of Dr. Sleep, and how if anybody can pull it off, yeah, it’d be him.
This is Not Oklahoma
and, nothing against Oklahoma, either. I watched Saving Grace, I mean, and I’ve read some good books and stories out of there — however, when I wrote ATBS, I remember very specifically driving everybody way around Oklahoma. Just because I knew that if I let anybody set tire there, that the story was going to
The Philosophy of Horror
by Noel Carroll — and I have no clue how to make his umlat. And, only took me this long to read it (it’s cited everywhere, is maybe the only of its kind) is because it was lodged in my head as being written by Noel Coward. Which never made sense. But, finally dug it
Bacon Review
I know — best journal title ever, right? My “Neither Heads Nor Tails” is up there now. Also, thanks to a heads-up from Gordon Highland, I just clicked through all the story links over to the right, here. Turns out a few of them were dead: “The Complete Absence of Cats is Another Definition for
The Wheelman Cometh
Man, went into Drive fully prepared for Steve McQueen to be powershifting through the city, fully psyched for that chase scene from Ronin to get dilated out to ninety minutes, was ready for some Gone in 60 Seconds (the remake) fun, so long as it didn’t get as goofy as The Fast and the Furious(es)
Pics from the wild
first is a bookstore window here in Boulder (Innisfree), second a friend shot to me from Virginia, I think.
The Floating Dead
A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it’d be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until
Couple of Anthologies
I’ve got stuff showing up in: Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and And IDW’s Zombies vs. Robots. And Creatures! is already orderable.
Fantasy Matters
My “I Was Genre When Genre Wasn’t Cool” (another Barbara Mandrell ode) is up at the very cool Fantasy Matters. also, I’m reading on the Hill here in Boulder tonight, at Innisfree.
Ding-Dong, You’re Dead
So what if the rats of NIMH got a taste for human flesh? Or, not flesh, exactly, but I don’t want to give anything away. In the way of hints, though, how about: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark doesn’t not have something to do with Darkness Falls. Where it separates itself, though, is quality.
The Back of Beyond
Finished CJ Box’s very Hillerman-ey Back of Beyond. Like everything else of his so far, I really dug it, though this one’s a lot more straight-ahead thriller than mystery, which is where he usually writes. I’d say it’s a (Crais) Hostage, just rural instead of urban. Just as well-paced, though, and very well-written this time, too.
Lazy Fascist and Zombie Bake-Off
remember in It’s Alive when that monster baby’s born and just chews his way through the delivery room? or when Victor von shouts to the heavens that It’s alive! It’s alive! thinking something like that for this. been waiting a long time for Zombie Bake-Off to become the kind of real people can see on
Creatures and Noir
The second piece of Not for Nothing is up at Dirty Noir, here (first piece as well, earlier). The rest? Available in 2014, via Dzanc. Or maybe 2013; I get confused which is when between it and Flushboy. Up today as well, my Creatures! interview, wherein slake moths and sharks are gnawed upon slightly.
Done Got Booked
by the guys over at Booked. I think we were supposed to go in the area of thirty, not more than forty minutes, so, you know, fifty two, that’s us just completely exercising control, I think. but, I mean, we were talking about zombie and slashers and werewolves (a bit), about horror and hospitals, about
Seven Spanish Angels
Back in 2005 or so, I was under contract to write a sequel to All the Beautiful Sinners for Rugged Land — they’re gone now, but they were hot for a while, and produced some gorgeous books, and, as far as I know, did the first ever serious book trailer, too (For Henry’s List of
The Last Werewolf
Read it, dug it, wrote about it over at The Cult. And, yes, very soon here I need to be writing my own werewolf novel. I think I only have two werewolf stories published, but I talk about werewolves enough — and have been thinking about them forever, and trying to be one for longer
Magazine of Bizarro Fiction
got a story in here, with some very cool people, whom I’m about to paste across from guest editor Cameron Pierce‘s post: Feature Novella: The Obsese by Shirley Jackson Award-winner Nick Antosca. Imagine The Birds with obese people instead of birds and you’ll have a slight idea of what this brilliant social satire is all
Warmed and Bound
click the banner to go to the site. right-click the banner to steal it. all looking very cool, very likely.
A Big Bucket of Now
Reading now: Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf. Will this werewolf be the only one to know regret? I’m only about a third through, but that’s a third in hardly any hours, so I’ll know soon. Anyway, completely digging it. Because, you know, it’s about werewolves, but also because it’s written so, so well. And, I
Dirty Noir
hey, first little bit of my 2014 novel Not For Nothing (Dzanc) is up over at the excellent Dirty Noir. Not For Nothing‘s second-person, small-town detective, and, for the first time, it’s set in the town I mostly grew up in: Stanton, Texas. Was so cool going there again in fiction, on the page. Can’t
True Grit (the book, this time)
Here’s a bit of writing you don’t see much of anymore: Stonehill was not in a quarrelsome mood that morning, indeed he was not snorting or blowing at all but rather in a sad, baffled state like that of some elderly lunatics I have known. Let me say quickly that the man was not crazy.